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June 29, 2002
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Dear Fellow Nigerians It is necessary to re-affirm our commitment to the project of the National Year of Sovereign Conferences. On this understanding, there is a need to render a Mid-Year Review of events in order to keep each other abreast of this important matter. There is a saying in the South West of Nigeria, it says it is the duty of a diviner to relay the message of an oracle to a consulting deaf repeatedly and loudly too. It is the contention of this writer that the messages on the need for national sovereign conferences cannot be delivered as a one-liner item. It has to be repeatedly delivered and more loudly too at every instance until the non-listening or heard-of-hearing Nigerians hear and understand the message. If there is any serious sickness in the world today and particularly in Nigeria it is the cultivated sense of apathy by majority of the human race to issues of political power and the governance or administration of their societies. The Common People of the world have carelessly and thoughtlessly relinquished their rights, responsibilities and powers to a small cabal of scumbags of the world that go by the name politician. In their naivety, the Common People expect these dregs of humanity in every nation to handle the affairs of their lives with equanimity, fearlessness, fairness, and justice. Since the Common People have refused to understand the type of personality lurking in the heart of politics their expectations, trusts and hopes have largely gone unrewarded. It is high time Nigerians accepted this simple truth that politicians cannot be trusted with power, money and honour. Politicians must be policed, challenged, scrutinised, monitored, and supervised at every level of decision-making. They are wheeler-dealers. Wheeler-dealers are not known to have any moral scruple or ethical principles of any kind. They flow with the wind of power and graft. If only the people of the world can understand this fact, then the idea of transferring the responsibility for the management of one’s life or the entire societies of a nation to the politicians shall cease forthwith. Politicians are not worthy of our trust and faith. As the year 2003 approaches commentators and futuristic writers have started raising the alarms of probable anarchy in the land of Nigeria. There is gradually developing across the nation fears of all kinds. There is fear in the house, fear in the street, fear in the woods and fear in the highways. There is fear every where. Political hoodlums, thugs, gangsters have taken over the land. They are threatening to kill and they have already started killing indiscriminately. These hoodlums are found every where even at the highest level of governance. They are the social charmers who dressed to kill to woo our affection and praise. They are the killers of the economy who robbed the innocent citizens of their meagre means of sustenance. They are the killers of morality who scandalously eroded our moral and ethical values. They are the daylight robbers who contracted our resources to local and international fraudulent businessmen and women. They are the millionaires and billionaires who enriched themselves through kickbacks and up-front payments from ridiculously over-invoiced and over-inflated government contracts awarded to their collaborators-in-shame. These odious groups of Nigerians are not and have never been interested in the people of Nigeria. They are the birds of passage and scavenger plenipotentiary. They are parasites. The status quo of Nigeria soothes them fine. They have no interest in democracy either nascent or full-grown. I am sorry for the combative introduction on the politicians. This writer has a moral allergy to the word politician. The word has never failed to draw out moral outrage in me anytime I come across it. Now having taking that load of anger out if our chest, what is the current position of power relations in the political fronts in Nigeria?
It was therefore disheartening to read the comments, analysis, memoirs, and history written by Nigerians, - not foreigners – that tend to eulogise these callous episodes in any form. That tends to see heroes in these atrocities. And that tend to see any form of justice in the catalogue of mayhem that the children of perdition inflicted on Nigerians. We are still reeling in psychotic delirium that this period left with us. It has led many of us to a state of perpetual insanity. It has made the winners more sadistic and more arrogant with the power that the episode gave them. It has made the victim hungrier for revenge, retribution, restitution and justice. Since all these expectations are not forthcoming, the victims have become cynical of the Nigeria project. They have become hateful of all those who rode to power, money and fame on the back of 1966. And the victims have become understandably more thin-skinned of any careless and insensitive comments on the dastardly episodes of 1966 and its aftermath. The victims have become inconsolable about the untold cost of the human and material losses they incurred and of the psychological pains that have been their lot in the political arrangement called Nigeria. The madness is still raging and that is why one feels terribly angry when those who should know better are of the erudite opinion that the past is the past. And that all the undercurrent issues that pertain to that period should be consigned to the past and forgotten. Foul. The past can never be the past until there is a justifiable resolution after thorough analysis of the causes of the problems. Until there is clear unambiguous understanding of the issues that sprung from that period. Until there is a political will to compensate the injured, to heal the wounds, to console the widows and the orphans, and to repay all those that were raped, robbed and pillaged. And until there is a spiritual will to forgive all that accepted and acknowledged their responsibilities and all that showed remorse in the despicable parts they played in that year, the past can never be the past. It is obvious Nigerians really haven’t understood the amount of irreparable damage that that period caused to the polity. If writers do, they would have shown more sympathy to the victims of that episode and they would have given the injured more opportunity to tend their wounds and more time to heal properly before engaging in the distasteful debate of a one-sided perspective history of 1966. This is one of the fundamental issues that make the project of Sovereign Conferences inevitable regardless of the strong oppositions from the so-called patriots. THE OPUTA PANEL The Oputa Commission on Human Rights Violations has submitted its report. We must offer our heartfelt congratulations to all the members of this august Panel for the sacrifices they made, as they put their lives on the line, for the people of Nigeria. This writer hopes Nigerians haven’t forgotten the calibre of people – those that answers critics with timed-bombs, arrest and torture, poisons, special bullets, hired killers etc. – the Panel was mandated to pursue. We must give the members of the panel our biggest thank you for seeing through the objectives set before them despite the maradonic efforts of some of these very important cruel Nigerians. Whatever the Oputa Panel failed or succeeded to achieve, we cannot take away from it the opportunity it afforded aggrieved Nigerians to put their cases across to the nations of Nigeria. This is a first and a major act on the road to full mental recovery for anyone who has been psychologically traumatised or wounded. Without what the psychologist call catharsis – “the process of freeing repressed emotions by association with the cause, and elimination by abreaction” - full mental recovery for a psychologically maladjusted person or nation cannot take place.
Since this writer became aware of the spiritual and psychological ailments in the body politic, he has not desisted from pointing it out at every opportunity. He has not shirked away from alerting Nigerians and Nigeria nations to consider the diagnosis of the experts that says we are a sick nation. There is a need for everyone to acknowledge the presence of this debilitating ailment and each of us need to understand the origin and the root cause of the problem before we can begin to deal with the symptoms. It is this aspect that gives me personal grief when one sees how Nigerians particularly the experts continue to focus frantically on the symptoms while refusing to devote a comparable effort towards unravelling the root causes of the problem. This type of behaviours is one of the veritable signs that could easily lead to the conclusion that our madness is far from receiving a cure. Let us spill it out, Nigeria is a country populated by too many mad people. It is a country with a high percentage of psychologically maladjusted, spiritually decadent, and morally bankrupted people. A good number of the nationals are in serious and urgent need of psychiatric confinement and treatment but they are roaming about the streets and more conspicuously they are strutting about in the corridors of power. If Nigerians neglect to take drastic actions, we should not be surprised if our neighbours both far and near, begin to erect the necessary barricades and walls around us to confine us to our polluted space and to stop us from contaminating them. Oputa Panel could have been a resounding success if the more chronically mad among us that go by the title, President, Head of State, Commander in Chief (Thief) of the Armed Forces, General, and the Dishonourable leaders have co-operated with the physicians. Unfortunately, these eminent Nigerians are still in self-denial of their psychotic states. As one of the first steps towards recovery they were invited to face Nigerians in truth, humility and honesty. They blatantly refused. They used every trick in the legal books to evade the Justice Oputa’s summons. Now these eminent personalities that have no respect for our laws and no regard for the elected Government are now making magomago (clandestine) moves to wrest the political power of the nation once again. They are ready again to contaminate us with their maladies. They are itching once again to bully us into submission for another round of sadistic bashing. May God forbid bad things. God willing they shall never succeed. And this writer sincerely believes that God is always on the side of the just and innocent. Let us pray and be watchful that never again shall chronically madmen take control of our lives and governments. Let us pray and be watchful that never again shall blind men, they are not even one-eyed men, lead us astray into another political, economic and social abyss. This is why the awakened Nigerians must mount every rooftop and raise the alarm to wake up the sleeping Nigerians from their stupid slumbers. However, now that the Oputa panel had submitted its report, what does anybody think the Federal Government of Nigerian would do with the report? Dear Nigerians, let us face the obvious the FGN cannot and can never act on the recommendations of the Panel. It will definitely be out of character for this Government to act otherwise. This government, like all the previous FGN, has not got the mandate, the political will, the courage, and the conviction that spring forth out of the knowledge and understanding of laudable principles to act on behalf of Nigerians. By now this writer hopes Nigerians must have got the message that the FGN was never guided in the past and is not being guided now and neither was it guided from the very first day of its birth in 1914 by noble principles. Let us mention it again, the entire edifice of the political structure of Nigeria, including the political actors and their moneybag sponsors that sprung out of it, were not built on love and courage. These two virtues are the natural fruits that flow from the tree of knowledge of the truth of life. Therefore, if Nigerians still expected positive actions or any action at all for that matter on this report then our inalienable rights to the fairyland is a forgone conclusion and unfortunately it shall forever be assured. THE FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS As the year 2003 draws close the airwaves is becoming more inundated and feverishly too by the noises emanating from the psychiatric quarters of the political gangsters of Nigeria. We are hearing that Very Important Top Dogs from the discredited military have started signalling their intentions and have actually thrown in their towels to participate in the 2003 Election. We are hearing that politicians with very serious conviction of the type that believes in the dictum of ‘Any Party in Power’ have started changing and decamping from one party to another. Even though there is still a full year to the election, governance and the day to day running of the already mediocre administration of state business have been neglected as incumbents are devoting their full attention to re-nomination and eventual winning of the next election. Dear Fellow Nigerians, let us draw back for a moment and think as we ask our selves, can the present political activities to which the entire nation is foolishly engaged see us through the political quagmire of waste and hopelessness? Can the unchanging process and the national tradition of recycling chronically mad Nigerians as occupiers of the highest political offices in the land lead our people out of the Homo Sapiens endangered specie list? Can the unrepentant members of the Wasted Generation be trusted again after many years of abuse of office and of our trust to continue with their vile activities without leading us into final human and material catastrophe? These and many similar questions should occupy our minds, as the election process is set into gear. Alas, this is not the case. Taking our bearing from comments particularly from Nigerians in the Diaspora, we are saddled with legal gymnastics of why and how Nigerians with dual nationalities should or should not be denied votes in the forth-coming elections. We read of Nigerians leaving and working abroad who are campaigning from their foreign bases for a right to contest election in Nigeria. And we heard of those offering support to one contestant or another in a political milieu of which they lack knowledge and understanding. Are these Nigerians making full use of the wealth of knowledge and practical experiences of the Mickey Mouse – the type where the more you look the less you see - democratic practices in the western world? How could Nigerians in the Diaspora give freely their support to what is going on in Nigeria under nascent democracy? How can we expect that this political brew will produce anything worthwhile and beneficial to all apart from pain and sorrow? The answers to these questions cannot be got by magic but by the application of common sense. It is obvious most Nigerians are of the pragmatic opinion that it is safer to keep muddling through our political problems rather than facing up to the serious intellectual and spiritual questions of our lives. And Nigerians are desperately hoping that by a miraculous divine intervention along the No Hope Highway that we are presently treading we shall get to the Promised Land eventually. Dream on Brothers and Sisters! LEADERSHIP QUESTIONS Our inherited colonial mentality has indoctrinated us into believing there is merit in the Western and Middle Eastern concept of leadership. It is therefore a common practice for Nigerians to hang their woes on the shoulders of ‘leaders’. It is with joy one reads the contribution of some very concerned Nigerians who are refuting the popular jingoism of such oxy-moron words like Igbo Leader, Arewa Leader, Yoruba Leader, etc. These analysts felt insulted and greatly offended by such stupid ideology in the political arena. SNC is expected to put to rest such illicit ideas from our political thought. The New Nigeria of our dream cannot entertain such moronic subservient concept of leadership. It is a Nigeria where every Nigerian shall be a leader by sovereign rights of equality. It is the leadership over self, first and foremost, before anything else or participation in the political arena. The kind of conventional leadership practice presently on display in the political world of every nation is a counterfeit of a noble principle. This type of leadership is made up of people who have not succeeded in emancipating themselves from the base instincts of nature. It is populated by people who are driven by a conspicuous consumption habit and a vulgar appetite for vanity and not by noble humble conviction. By people driven by compromise as wheeler-dealers and not by moral values and ethical principles. And by people driven by a desire to acquire power for personal pride and self-aggrandisement and not for the love of fellow human beings as a means of rendering altruistic services to the commonwealth. These are some of the principles the knowledge of sovereign and sovereignty and the Sovereign Conferences would highlight as we identify and define leadership values and practices in Nigeria. These issues are urgent and important and we shall encourage Nigerians to debate them earnestly with passion in the media, in the classrooms, in the churches, in the mosques, in the markets, in the offices and in every social gathering. We must put a stop to the pedantic debate of who is the Igbo leader or Yoruba Leader or Arewa Leader or Ogoni Leader or Fulani Leader, etc. It is the leadership of each Nigerian we must endeavour to cultivate from henceforth. It is the personal leadership over immoral values and the sad raw human nature that should engage our consciousness as a people on the road to the Promised Land. There are many other contemporary issues floating about in the cyber-space but the few reviewed above are sufficient as veritable materials to support the suggestion that the time for Sovereign Conferences in Nigeria is now or never. We cannot and we should not continue on our present way, to do so flows against the grain of common sense. What are we scared of? How can any sane energetic person who is not crippled allow his or her house to fall into disuse or become a wasteland? How can any intelligent person with love in his/her heart continue to witness the suffering and wretchedness of fellow citizens and refuses to lift a finger because of fear of marauders who have hijacked the political institutions of the Nigeria State since the moment of its birth? These few observations are strong enough to justify why we cannot run away from the project of Sovereign Conferences. THE FAMILY SOVEREIGN CONFERENCES In this letter, we shall like to reiterate on the reasons why we suggested the idea of Family Sovereign Conferences after every literate Nigerian has undertaking a self-help learning exercise on the meaning of sovereignty and sovereign. We were persuaded by the knowledge of the fact that a nation is the sum of the households. And that if any constituent part of the nation is defective, the entire nation will also be defective. In order to heal a defective nation, it is necessary to identify the defective parts and to focus treatment on them. Large proportions of the households or families that make up Nigeria are sick and very sick indeed. These households or families are the primary producers of the dysfunctional groups that bestride the corridors of political power in Nigeria. When families have no moral or political power to sanction their wayward members then woe betides that nation. The family is the first level of government in any polity. Each family must have rights and powers to lay down the principles and values of behaviour for its members. This moral and ethical task should not be transferred to the state. And until each family is organised under some noble values and principles, the nations of Nigeria cannot enjoy peace, progress and prosperity. This writer is not saying that the task of organising a Family Sovereign Conference is going to be easy. We understand there are some families where members have not spoken together for many years. This is the wisdom behind our suggestion. When blood relations find it difficult to see eye to eye over common issues, how do we think it is going to be easy for the many culturally different nations of Nigeria that were politically forced and wedged together since 1914 to survive without experiencing catastrophic repercussions? Organising the kind of Family Sovereign Conference we suggested shall entail great efforts from family members: seeking each other out, reconciling age-long differences, forgiving each other and healing the wounds and scars of past misdeeds. Here lies the secret of the healing of the nations of Nigeria. We believe that when a family is built on a foundation of noble values and principles, members shall be guided by the values they have identified and defined as essential to their wellbeing and collective happiness. It becomes difficult for any member that robbed his/her community or government to find solaces or supports in the household. Families that have laid down the moral and ethical rules of behaviour on what is permissible or non-permissible and what shall be done or not done with members that defiled the family mores have greater political powers to sanction erring members and to call them to account for their actions. This is the moral principle behind the FSC. At the moment we observe that members of most families have no moral compulsion against robbing their local government or state government or national government. Family members gladly welcome the looters back into their fold. They assist the looters to hide the stolen and pillaged booties and they give them protection from the hands of the law. They are willing to lie for them and they are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder in crime. This is why national villains are seen as local heroes in their villages and ethnic communities. These are the observable phenomena that have led to the conclusion that Nigerian societies are spiritually decadent, morally bankrupt and ethically corrupt to the foundation. This is the level where works needed to be done, not in Aso Rock, not in the National Assembly and not in the Senate. The work to be done is not even in the State Houses, or State Assemblies or Local Government Councils or Communities. The work is principally at the family level of social organisation. Fellow Nigerians, as soon as we can get the fundamental of the social equation and principle of noble existence right at the family level, the next levels of the social, economic and political constructions shall become effortlessly easy. Unfortunately, the power-loving Nigerians love to focus every attention and effort on the central level of government as the only place that requires healing. They are wrong. The centre cannot hold when the constituent parts are cancerous. Nigeria is very sick because each household is sick. In order to heal the nation let us heal the households. And to heal the households let us heal each member of the household. It is a simple equation but we have failed to see it because our erudite political scholars are looking for that academic political theory of governance cultivated and brewed in the Ivory Towers of Harvard and Oxford. Why should Nigerians trust any idea from the Ivory Towers? Who says that most of the important ideas that have revolutionised our world emanated from the Ivory Towers? The Ivory Towers of the world are not notable for originality. They are like any bureaucratic institution saddled with the management and administration of established archival ideas. By their traditional orientation as provider of men and women of the establishment, they are not in a position to create original vibrant ideas. They are only good at polishing and recycling belated and bygone ideas. The reason for this can be found in the professional territorial consciousness of the members of the Ivory Towers. It discourages inter- or intra-departmental co-operation. It is suspicious and jealous of those that espouse new ideas, and it forbids their new young members from foraging into other territories for innovative ideas. Each school of thought has turned into a little cult where members risk excommunication if they made the mistake of merely peeping out into other areas of thoughts. So why should Nigerians wait on the eggheads to lead us out of our national calamities when they are also equally lost like everyone else in their fairyland Ivory Tower? But as soon as we mentioned the need to focus on the moral and ethical dimensions of our existence as a marooned people floundering in the sea of life the eggheads will take us through a foundation course in political theories. They give us erudite lectures on the theories of national interest of nations and the political economy of comparative advantages that make nations great. They fill our ears with tales of the immoral history of other nations they count, in their academic wisdom, as successful or great. And they arrogantly advise us to emulate such nations, since they adjudged that the ungodly method of statecraft ditched out by these so-called great nations is the only path to democracy and civilisation. We beg to differ. We believe that until Nigerian intellectuals begin to conceptualise issues from a fundamental level of premise, begin to engage their intellects for discovery of original ideas and begin to tear into shreds all the god-forsaking polemics of western nations, Nigeria shall remain a beggared, battered and fatally impoverished nation. We must detour away from the Western and Middle Eastern political values and philosophies. These are the values keeping us under for a rich picking. They are the values killing us. We must shatter the Western and Middle Eastern values. They are the values of slave masters and slave owners. They are satanic values. But we cannot shatter these values unless we start the task from the family and personal level. Abuja cannot do this for us. It is imperative that each Nigerian must have to engage his/her senses for this onerous task. Dear Fellow Nigerians, this is the voice of reason and of common sense logic. Our intention is to build a new nation from the scratch not to patch up a sickly dying nation. Our intention is to demolish the existing dilapidated structure and to begin afresh an original architectural design for both the foundation and structural works of a New Nigeria. Our intention is to build a new structure from the foundation level to the rooftop. We are convinced that the hosts of Nigerians have suffered long enough. The fire of mismanagement has synched the entire present structure and the only safe remedy is to demolish the badly damaged structures and to rebuild it. It is often said that when accidental fire burns down a palace it gives the community a special opportunity to build a more beautiful modern palace befitting an important and beloved king. The kings and queens of Nigeria need a new structure in a New Nigeria that shall befit our status as the newly redeemed and awakened people. We are a new people or we shall be when we start to listen to reason and the logic of common sense. When we stop hiding under the cloak of ignorance and laziness. When we desist from living in the land of fairies. When we begin to face reality squarely with common sense. When we overcome fear and superstitions in our lives. And when we allow the knowledge of the truth of life to be our banner, our light and our guide. These are the conditions that can hasten the emergence of the awakened Nigerians into a glorious New Nigeria that needs to be designed and built. THE GLORIOUS FIGHT The fight ahead of the redeemed and awakened Nigerians is a fight that will rightly and sensibly takes its cue from natural laws. Natural law teaches us not to fight fire with fire but to fight fire with water. Therefore, the redeemed and the awakened Nigerians in like manner will not fight hate with hate but shall fight hate with love. We shall not fight lies with lies but shall fight lies with truth. We shall not fight bigotry with bigotry but shall fight bigotry with knowledge. We shall not fight darkness with darkness but shall fight darkness with light. We shall not fight intolerance with intolerance but shall fight intolerance with forbearance. We shall not fight evil with evil but shall fight evil with godliness. Similarly we shall fight wickedness with kindness, arrogance with humility, narrow-mindedness with broad-mindedness, competition with co-operation, war with peace and revenge with forgiveness. And above all we shall fight tyranny with civil disobedience. If any so-called awakened Nigerian has other ideas and methods for the fight of liberty, equality, and justice in Nigeria, this writer regrets to say, that awakened Nigerian should count him/herself potentially outside the fold of the spirit of truth, the guiding spirit of our Age. We shall not expect a free uncontested fight from the group of Nigerians who love or who are gaining from the status quo despite its punitive effects on the majority of the nationals. As each nation of Nigeria comes into being and begin to take its rightful place on the national, continental and global stages we should not be surprised if we begin to hear the wailing cries of prophets of doom from the psychiatric quarters of Eminent Nigerians. Let us take a peep across the seas for a moment. Last week, on the 18th of June to be precise, one of the voices of the English establishment and a columnist Stephen Glover commented on the rise of English nationalistic passion among football supporters. He noted that most England football supporters were flying the flags of St. George and not the Union Jack at the on-going World Cup Fiesta in South Korea and Japan. He wrote in the Daily Mail to express his fears and the possible implications that such nationalistic fervour may portend for British politics. He writes, “The passionate identification with England, rather than Britain cannot be divorced from the political development of the past few years. Devolution has set Wales and more particularly, Scotland – Northern Ireland is in a category of its own – on paths which are increasingly divergent from England. The tragic endgame could be the disintegration of the United Kingdom.” Doesn’t that italicised last sentence sound familiar? Whenever the oppressed and the enslaved group of a god-forsaken polity begin to seek redress for justice and begin to carve a room for their self-determination, ‘the patriots’ of such nation will begin the usual singsong of disintegration. Unfortunately for them, this shall be the natural trend of the New Age. The cry for freedom shall ring out from the least expected places. Our world is overdue for major re-alignment. The global injustices have gone too far. The misery, suffering, agony and pain in the world have reached an unprecedented level. And this writer believes heaven has never neglected to heed the cry of the forsaking people when they call for help. This is our cry, that heaven should come to our aid and lift up the oppressed, the enslaved, the downtrodden, the powerless and the dying people of Nigeria. This is our faith and our belief that in the life time of our generation, a New Nigeria shall be born. The expected miracle of the birth of this new nation shall entail the contributions of every true-bred Nigerian. Nigerians shall no longer sit on the fence while hoodlums take the centre stage as ‘leaders’. Every Nigerian shall be taught to see him/herself as a leader. Every Nigerian shall understand that a leader is anyone who has genuinely and devotedly cultivated noble habits and who has successfully overcome the vicissitudes of the untamed and unruly human nature. Leadership shall no longer be defined by the volume of money in the bank or by the number of wives a man married or by the number of houses a person owns. Neither shall it be defined by the number of fancy letters before and after a person’s name or by the number of stars that decorate the shoulder of a khaki-wearing Zombie. These are the lessons we shall come to learn as we progress on the civilised path of Sovereign Conferences in Nigeria. Dear Fellow Nigerians let us be more watchful of the unabashed and shameless political games going on in the fatherland. We should not allow anything to distract our attentions – not even the FIFA World Cup – from the real issues of our lives. It was interesting to see the great passion on display across the nations as Nigerians rooted for the Green Eagles to succeed at the Korea/Japan World Cup Festival. How one wishes that similar passion can be extended to the issue of sovereignty? Why is it that it is only the game of football that brings out the spirit of unity among Nigerians? Yet, in spite of the natural potential we have for the game of football, we know that if the patriots had their way the application of the principle of Federal Character in the selection of the national team would have thwarted the little gain Nigeria enjoys in football. We are not trying to deny Nigerians their love for the game of football but we cannot desist from mentioning that the joy that football gives is ephemeral, a flitting happiness and it is never long-lasting. It is a like a blur over aches and pains. It is a temporary panacea, an illusion and a pure fiction that can never answer the questions that life is throwing up from time to time in Nigeria. For the politicians any diversion in the political arena is a welcome opportunity to bury bad news. Nigeria is a bad news any time. Excellence in football should not be substituted for the pursuit of excellence in spirit, excellence in moral and ethical values, excellence in skill development and hard work, excellence in scholarship and excellence in science and technology. Nigerians should be advised never to allow any illusion that the success in football or any other sport brings to becloud our senses or to distort our resolves to pursue the goals of liberty, equality and justice in Nigeria to its logical conclusion. This writer is aware that the kind of songs he is singing might be offensive and irritable to the sensibilities of a good number of Nigerians but he is equally aware that a good number of Nigerians are finding the songs pleasing to the ears. This is quite understandable. Our nature forbids the culture of herd behaviours in human societies. Each of us is designed to perceive our environment differently. We also have an adaptive nature that is capable of learning and adjusting according to a situation and particularly when it concerns the question of survival of the specie. This writer will advice that we should give each other a chance to present our cases on the best way forward on the issues that pertain to the survival of our people. No matter how stupid an idea is let us put it to the test of common sense, hopefully we might find some merit in the seemingly stupid ideas. Fellow Nigerians we need to reconsider the hopeless situation in which we have foolishly led ourselves. We cannot allow things to go on this way. If we refuse to think the unthinkable we run the risk of a major social and political implosion. The power to change our circumstances for the better is within each of us. We need to be aware of this power before we can use it effectively. This is why this writer will continue to sing the songs of redemption; of freedom; of equality; and of justice until fellow Nigerians hear and understand them. And then together we can sing the chorus: Never again shall blind men lead us astray into the cuckoo-land, Never again shall politicians ride on our back to fame and fortune, Enough is enough of individual foolishness, Enough is enough of the present national nonsense. May the Spirit of Truth continue to be our light, our guide and our teacher. May we have the courage to face our age-long slave masters; no matter in what disguise it is currently packaged, as we demand for a true freedom and a right to self-determination in an unmistakable term. May the spirit of truth lead every Nigerian into full spiritual consciousness of the true meaning of leadership as we joyously work together as partners and in co-operation to design and to build our own native nations. In The Spirit of Truth
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Guides
2002: National Year of Sovereign Conferences: Mid-Year Review